The Beauty Within chapters 1 and 2
by swan-yet-to-be-seen
Summary: Brokenhearted, our beloved Erik from The Phantom of the Opera has a new girl who enters his life... different, just like him. Can this become a friendship and eventually something more? Or is Erik doomed to continue his life loveless and alone...


In a somber gaze from his seat in Box 5, Erik stared bitterly at the lover's portrayed on the stage below. As if by habit, he would subtly glance at the seat to the immediate left to his, still hoping to see that she had come back for him. The subtlety in his gaze was not a result of being watched- no, he had mastered the art over the years spent in the Opera Popular learning to train his eyes to see everything, and his instinct to keep him from sight.

This ability, which had led to his murderous rampage earlier in the year, now kept his associates at a somewhat comfort. The two owners of the theatre, along with the so-called Opera Ghost had settled upon an unspoken agreement: Erik would continue to write and cast the plays as he saw fit and would find ways to notify the director if something was amiss. For their part, the two managers would continue to pay his salary as well as allow him his coveted Box 5 seat on the condition that he was not to cause disruption to any process of the Opera Popular; be it rehearsal, performance, or showcase. This entailed staying hidden as he always had, a condition to which Erik could not be happier to comply with.

The shrill note of the leading diva jerked Erik back from his thoughts of his current circumstances. As beautiful as… the other audience members found her to be, the woman could not act, and Erik was beginning to develop a headache. He took comfort in the pain, however, grateful that his weary heart could have a rest from the constant pains it had grown accustomed to feeling.

How he missed her! Everywhere he went, he saw her- from the chapel that had served as both of their private sanctuaries, almost a decade apart, to the tunnels where he confessed his love to her and (it seemed) she gave her love in return. He heard her during restless days and sleepless nights- the voice of a true angel, not some misshapen demon, some creature of darkness that yearned only for an angel's love. On his morning excursions through the halls, before the others had begun awaking from the festivities (there were constant festivities long into the night) before, the smells of the newly built garden would seductively sneak into his mind, reminding him of what could have been, and what would never be.

He loved Christine, there would never be a doubt about that, but when spring returned to France, it did so with the realization that he loved the feeling more so than Christine herself. The day she arrived at the Opera Popular was one that he played over and over in his mind: kneeling at a cross, she began talking to some unseeable being, thanking God that this person was safe in Heaven, and asking that the Angel of Music be someone she could befriend, rather than big, scary, angel that her father had sometimes spoken of from the Bible. Together they waited (Christine unaware of Eric's constant presence) for the angel to arrive. In time, the child became discouraged and would sing to herself, as any child would, to keep her hope from being shattered. Although he had never heard a voice outside of the Opera walls, Erik was aware of his keen ability in training voices, especially his own. Never having heard professional voices, he had already developed a range more in tune and much wider than any of the professional singers. He could be her Angel! Finally- Erik would have someone with whom he could teach and eventually befriend… eventually. The training commenced, with Erik constantly remaining in the shadows, throwing his voice during their lessons, ensuring that until the moment was perfect, she would never know of him. On the day of her sixteenth birthday, however, everything began to change. Madame Giry bought her a new dress, the first one of that kind that Christine had ever owned- for the first time in his life, Eric noticed the beauty in her form- the shapes, curves, and gentle softness gave him a feeling in not only the body, but the heart as well. He had fallen in love with this creature of light! From that moment on, Erik continued to urge her in practice, and taught her everything he knew. He stole book and even snuck out once or twice to buy more book and small trinkets for the sold purpose of fulfilling her life, a small token in exchange for the life she had so selfishly given him. As more years passed, Erik began planning the moment he would propose himself to her. He had to bear the thought of rejection from the only being he had ever allowed himself to care for.

And so he waited. He waited through every golden laugh, through every kind word she spoke to him, and thorough every tear she cried, missing her father with every breath she took. How Erik long to comfort her in these difficult times, to come out of the shadows and hold her in his arms, just as he dreamed every night that he would one day do. But he did not want her to love him out of loneliness, or out of pity, but out of love itself. And so he waited. The weeks seemed to grow longer, and the moment of truth always seemed out of reach until the day when during a typical tantrum of La Carlotta, Madame Giry suggested to the (at the time) new managers that Christine Daaj, his Christine Daaj, be allowed to understudy. He hadn't even been in attendance to that rehearsal, choosing rather to prepare some warm water for Christine to rest her feet in after that night's rehearsal. He would know her voice anywhere, and when it seeped through the walls like an intoxicating drug that held the power to rid the world of everything cruel and cold, he had to be there with her. Leaving the water, he scoured the walls, climbing, jumping, crawling, whatever led him to hear her better he followed. Her face, still slightly pink at the pressure of being required to perform so suddenly gave him the courage to do what he had sworn he would do for the past seven years- he would ask Christine to love him, and only him, until death parted their souls temporarily.

The night of the expected performance left him more nervous than he would allow himself to feel. He made sure that when she left to warm-up with the other girls that her room was filled with only the most beautiful flowers, only the sweetest, only the flowers that deserved to be in the presence of a true Angel of Music. In his haste to perfect everything, his typical arrival to his usual box was delayed, which would not have ordinarily mattered to him, but he wanted to make sure that he could witness not only Christine's performance, but her superiority above the others from the opening act until the curtain call. Arriving out of breath and slightly dizzy from a mixture of hurriedness to prepare and great anticipation, Eric turned the latch to his box door to find it locked. His door. Locked.

The red began seeping in his eyes and Erik could think of nothing more than to ignore the blatant disregard by the managers concerning his wishes, and stand on the balcony with his head a mere foot from the ceiling to watch her performance. Erik was delighted and enchanted by her; she impressed him, even- her grace, her modesty, and her beauty astounded the entire audience but none so much as him. He knew that tonight would be the night. After the curtain finally closed, he retreated to the inner wall opposite her room, and positioned himself to await her arrival.

Tripping over the frame of the mirror in his lair, Erik was forced back into the cold, harsh reality that Christine Daaj, above all, had forced him to accept. He gave her everything he had, she was nothing without him, but in the end, the boy with a whole face, and a warm home had won her over. From the moment he stood behind the mirror that could have led them both to a heaven of their own, Erik realized he didn't stand a chance.

The lair that had once held so much comfort for him was still in disarray from the night of her betrayal. Erik knew it wasn't fair to regard her choice as that, a betrayal, but what was the point of tact when there was no one to share it with. Stepping over the mirror, or what was left of it, Erik walked past the curtain which had held a doll in her likeness for so long, collapsed to his bed with a groan, and tried to compose, yet again. The attempt, however, was in vain.

That was another side effect of Christine's departure. She was his muse. He composed it all- every song, every lyric, every note that came from him was to entertain her, to enlighten her, to be sung by her and her alone. Without Christine, there was no music- of the night or otherwise. There was cynicism, there was rehearsal to observe, there were plays to critique and silently loathe oneself for composing them. The audience seemed to enjoy them, though, and their joy brought him a smug ray of joy.

"For someone so hideous, I can compose beautifully. Your seemingly beautiful bodies will in time deteriorate and rot and my work will still be here, entertaining and being known throughout Paris as what? The most beautiful- in one year or ten. Enjoy your youth while it lasts. I'm glad mine was taken away too soon for it to eat away at my inside, too."

Although he tried to convince himself otherwise, Erik was constantly aware of what was behind the mask. It never ceased to baffle him how an infection of so long ago could have effects so withering. It was constant torture that was relieved with death no sooner than the normal person's. He wasn't normal, though, and that's what constantly ailed him. Or maybe he was. How could he rationalize to himself what it meant to be a fellow human being that felt, and created, and… even… hurt. And if he was a human being, why was he treated like such a monster from his birth. Yes, he had done monstrous things, but when he was an innocent child just out his mother's womb he was certain he had still been regarded as a monster. Every memory as far back as possible entailed that mask. It was his freedom, it was his jailor. Erik, as so many night before, fell asleep loving and loathing a person who would always return the feelings- himself.

The next morning Erik awoke not particularly pleased with what the day held in store. The Sunday matinees were not only rushed, they were crowded, unpleasant, and quite frankly a damn nuisance. Erik took it upon himself to ensure that the private boxes were unlocked. Never desiring a repeat of losing his desired seat in the theatre, especially to a pea-brained Chihuahua like Raoul Chagney, this practice was accepted among the staff and they ensured the area was private while he made his rounds.

In his usual theatre garb, a black suit complete with a cape and the preferred white mask, Erik began unlocking the rooms, starting on the lower floor and working his way up, beginning at the stage left side, working his way across, and moving up and back towards stage left. This system also worked so that when the Box 5 seat was moved back into its designated corner of darkness, the usher's were adequately aware that all private seats were opened and the anticipating patrons could be seated.

Erik had just opened the final door before his box when he heard a voice calling down the hall.

"Excuse me, sir, but I believe I'm lost."

Erik rushed to get to his Box 5 door and to thrust the key into its hole. The last thing he needed after a night like the last was some squabbling female to shriek at seeing the legendary Phantom of the Opera. People were always trying to sneak past the ushers to explore around, seeking out a story to tell their friends back home. Typically, however, they would decide the horror would be too great just as they set eyes on him and that's how the trouble would start. Eric would get angry, some of the patrons would run off, and the managers would blame him. Before Erik could open the door, however, the girl was next to him.

"Wonderful," thought Erik to himself, "a fast one who can run through the theatre before fainting in the middle of it. That will be great for business."

"I'm sorry to bother you, but I can't seem to find my seat or, my box rather."

In the dark hallway, Erik could barely make out the shape of her face, but her voice seemed kind and honest. Perhaps she really was lost. Mentally he tried to come up with a way to find the light to read her ticket, give her instructions to the right place and douse the lights before she was any the wiser. But because he had access to neither controllable light nor a wall to distance them, Erik grabbed the ticket, ducked into his box, read the ticket, and zipped out before the girl was any wiser. This master plan, however, did prove to have one glitch: as habit, the first thing Erik did when he opened the door was to pull the chair to him so that the patrons could begin to find their seats. Unfortunately, habit was ruled in favor of with this simple action, and before Erik could shout a warning to the ushers the lights flipped on.

In his hurriedness to explain himself and rush into his box, Erik noticed very little about the young lady. He was barely able to release the words "it's right here, next to mine," before diving back into his allotted space. It wasn't until Erik had finally calmed down over the whole excursion that he finally took notice in his recollection of the girl in the brief moment of light. He felt foolish in not taking more careful notice that she was extremely plain, yet somehow extremely attractive as well. He laughed a little to think that he did not take immediate notice that her ticket had been bent repeatedly, as if this visit to the opera had been planned for months and couldn't be held off on moment more. What surprised Erik the most, however, in regards to the girl, was the emerald green skin that seemed to cover every visible inch of her increasingly beautiful body.

As Elphaba settled into her seat in Box 4, her thoughts wandered to the strange man she had previously met. She did not know much about the theatrical process itself, but she held a certainty that the actors, masked or otherwise, remained behind the curtain immediately before the production was scheduled to begin. The matter, however, was of no concern to her. She was here to enjoy at the show- she knew she had earned herself at least that.

After she and Fiyero had left Oz to pursue a life together, she slowly began to discover that nothing was as it seemed. For such a doting friend, after they found a place to live Elphaba hardly saw Fiyero at all. He never physically left the vicinity, but for such a small home he always managed to stay just out of her sight.

Elphaba spent many days as well as nights pondering over why her lover continued to avoid her. At first she told herself she was simply paranoid as a result of all the rejection from people when she was younger, but the weeks continued to progress and by the time the last leaf fell from the cluster of trees surrounding their secluded abode, Elphaba knew that a confrontation would soon come into play.

She retired to their bedroom early one night, knowing that he would follow shortly after the lights were out and he was certain she had fallen asleep, or at least was on the verge of it. She doused the lights and seated herself in a position facing the door so that when he walked in he would see her first and would not be startled when she spoke.

Just as she predicted, Fiyero arrived in the room within an hour of her departure. He startled to see her, and Elphaba muttered an apology:

"I'm sorry; I didn't mean to startle you. It just seems to me that I never see you anymore and thought it would be a nice surprise to see you and get the chance to talk to you before we go to sleep."

Although he would never fully realize it, Elphaba had the ability to read Fiyero like a book. From the first day he had arrived at Shiz University she had known him on a level deeper than he had known himself. She could see him for what he was, not what he wanted to be or what everyone else saw him as. This ability she possessed revealed his true feelings towards her. Elphaba noticed an anxiety in his face, a frantic search for explanation, any explanation that would leave him feeling like a good person, instead of the shallow creep he constantly believed himself to be.

"What is it, Fiyero?"

Elphaba asked the question apprehensively, terrified of knowing the answer.

"Fabala," he replied, coyly using his pet name for her to ease in the rapier of words with which he was about to thrust to her, "when we left Oz things were so different. They've changed and I want to change with them. I want to leave."

"We'll leave then. Everyone desires change. Make arrangements to sell this place and I can have everything packed by tomorrow and we can start a new life. I can take my work with me, and you- you make a home. I'll follow you wherever you choose, Yero."

"No, Elphie, no. You are the change I want to make. You could never understand that leaving Oz was never so much about being with you as it was being without Glinda. When I chose you in front of her I was glad to help you, yes, because you don't really have anyone else who would care to help you. I figured you would be free of the guards, Glinda would express her anger towards you, and I could leave Oz forever. I said things to you to keep you with me, I needed your magic to keep me safe and it did, but as a scarecrow. I left Oz with you with the realization that you were the only one who would have me, but…"

At this point Fiyero slid his hand along the wall to the light switch and flipped the lights on. To Elphaba's shock and amazement, he was as he had been back in their days at school. Instead of a straw-filled sack for his head and hand, they were pale and smooth. His eyes were no longer cloth, but blue and fierce and as piercing as ever. The golden tresses of hair that had previously been reduced to straw had transformed back as such.

Before she could stop herself, Elphaba held up her own hands in hope that her green hands had been changed as well. But no- green skin was something she had been born with, not some chanted, hasty spell by a novice witch in sheer panic. The man for whom she had developed a love for was telling her that for a moment they had been on the same level, but that moment had past.

In an instant it all became clear to her. She had been avoided by Fiyero ever since the change began! It was not mere chance that she kept missing him- he had not wanted to keep company with a green girl when he could be elsewhere. Instead of tending their garden as they had during the midst of the summer, he chose rather to watch himself in the mirror. Rather than read aloud to each other as they enjoyed doing in the first months of purchasing their cottage, he preferred to be in her company only in the presence of darkness. She was nothing short of hideous, and had never felt it more so than this moment. The tears in her eyes began to form, but she forced herself to not show any emotion to this man, what good would it do now? Luckily, he spoke then, allowing her a distraction from the tank of emotion that was threatening to overpower her.

"I've had my things packed for a while, now, and I suppose now would be the best time to leave."

"I agree that it would be best."

He reached under their bed where he pulled a suitcase hidden well behind some empty boxes the parting couple had acquired. She walked with him to the door, and leaned in to kiss him good-bye. When she felt his lips flinch at their touch to hers, she realized his departure would be for the best. What point was there in company, romantic or otherwise that couldn't even stand the sight of you? It broke Elphaba's heart to watch him leave, but as she settled down in her bed a cry later, she was comforted in the knowledge that, like all true spells, the one that a love had cast on her would end eventually, and life would go on, alone perhaps, but continuous nevertheless.


End file.
